Lorenzo Tricoli

To introduce himself, Lorenzo Tricoli (1965-2017) would say: “I was born in Milan in 1965; it was August 10th, the night of shooting stars, Saint Lawrence’s. I was given a mission: to inspire others through art. And I do that with passion and care”. After a childhood filled with unforgettable eccentric encounters, like the one with Andy Warhol, thanks to her mother, well-known fashion journalist Anna Riva, Lorenzo decides to study photography at the ICP in New York. He also takes part to workshops with Richard Avedon, and then returns to Italy to work as an independent photographer. Specializing in the field of fashion and design, he creates advertising campaigns for well-known designers and collaborates with the most important magazines in the industry. At the same time, inspired by the meetings with international artists that frequent MiCamera bookstore and gallery in Milan, such as Mark Steinmetz and Paul Kooiker, Lorenzo develops a personal research, full of subversive irony and subtle denunciations. He then presents his first artistic projects. Where Is The Pope? is an unbound artist book on people waiting for Benedict XVI’s ‘popemobile’ to pass by in June 2012, when Milan hosted a number of events the Pope had to attend. In Support Your Locals, he examines the gentrification process of the Isola district of Milan, with an exhibition in an abandoned newsstand and four issues of a free publication dedicated to specific themes, such as nature, night and snow, that Lorenzo distributes for free to the inhabitants of the neighborhood. Over the years his work has become increasingly conceptual and grounded on ‘appropriation’, inspired by the likes of John Baldessari and the duo Broomberg & Chanarin. This is the beginning of his open-end oeuvre, the irreverent and ever-changing archive on the tragicomic history of the Belpaese, The Archive You Deserve, which in turn generates temporary installations and artist’s books like Bunga Bunga (2014) and (Other) Adventures of Pinocchio (2016). Sadly, Lorenzo suddenly passes away in February 2017, leaving us with a complex archive full of unpublished and unfinished projects, all yet to be explored. We can only hope that the Lorenzo Tricoli Archive will end up in the good hands of an institution that can catalog and valorize it with exhibitions and publications.

SATURDAY 21 APRIL
6:00 pm
Guided tour with Federica Chiocchetti and Laura Gasparini 

SUNDAY 22 APRIL
Piazza Martiri del 7 luglio 10:30 am
The work of Lorenzo Tricoli: irriverence, humor and politically incorrect
with Federica Chiocchetti, Emiliano Biondelli, Lina Pallotta e Giulia Zorzi